Disrupting Currents

Ruth Beer is a Professor in the Faculty of Visual Art and Material Practice at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. She is an artist and researcher who is interested in interdisciplinary approaches to these practices. Her work includes sculpture, photography, and digital new media to investigate ideas about social and cultural shifts related to marine environments and coastal communities. She has an extensive record of national and international exhibitions. She is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts and has completed several public sculpture commissions. Recently, as principal investigator, her work has focused on “Catch and Release: Mapping Stories of Geographic and Cultural Transitions”, as principal investigator of a project that is supported by a national SSHRC Research Creation in the Fine Arts Grant (2009-2013) to create artwork and exhibitions related to social history and fishing in collaboration with cultural and heritage museums.

Kit Grauer is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy at the University of British Columbia. She  is actively involved in art education organizations at the local, national, and international levels. Dr. Grauer’s interests include arts-based and image-based research, international issues in art education, teacher education, museum education, and art curriculum and instruction. She has given numerous presentations, in-service sessions, and keynote speeches in these areas. Her current research includes the use of artistic pedagogical strategies in both pre-service and in-service teacher education, museum education, and community-based new media education.

Jim Budd is currently the Chair of Georgia Tech’s School of Industrial Design. Until 2010, he was associate professor of industrial and interaction design at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where he headed the Wearables and Interactive Products Lab. He has 15 years of academic and research leadership in human-centered, interactive product design, as well as two decades of corporate design experience. He has an extensive research and publication record and has received several design and teaching awards.